THE HISPARC CONTROL SYSTEM

The purpose of the HiSPARC project is twofold. First the physics goal: detection of high-energy cosmic rays. Secondly, to offer an educational program in which high school students participate by building their detection station and analysing their data. Approximately 70 high schools, spread over the Netherlands, are participating. Data are centrally stored at Nikhef in Amsterdam. The detectors, located on the roof of the high schools, are connected by means of a USB interface to a Windows PC, which itself is connected to the high school’s network and further on to the public internet. Each station is equipped with GPS providing exact location and accurate timing. This paper covers the setup, building and usage of the station software. It contains a LabVIEW run-time engine, services for remote control and monitoring, a series of Python scripts and a local buffer. An important task of the station software is to control the dataflow, event building and submission to the central database. Furthermore, several global aspects are described, like the source repository, the station software installer and organization.